All incunable editions are undated and unsigned by their printers. ISTC locates 15 incunable editions of this practical text which testifies to a real demand. Yet the fact that they are all printed anonymously might make one wonder.

Gerson wrote this treaties around 1412, In Brian Patrick McGuire’s Biography of Gerson [Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation .Pennsylvania State University Press 2005] he discusses at length this “important commentary on his (Gerson)attitude to the body and its functions”

Gerson commences the Pollutione Nocturna with a personal statement.

“I have frequently and for a long time been in doubt, especially after I was ordained priest, if someone who was polluted by a nighttime dream should refrain from celebrating Mass…..”

Gerson has “to speak in an impure way” to address this Subject but he proceeds in his usual orderly fashion ,with 10 ‘considerationes’ McGuire Describes it thus: “Gerson’s familiar manner, starting out with free will and choice, as well as the individual’s worthiness to celebrated the Mass, and ending with Detailed instructions on how to cope with bond functions. … He asks when it is that a person gives consent. In other words: when semen flowers in sleep to what extent can the individual be considered responsible?”

The fifth considerations tells us:

“No form of pollution that is begun and completed in sleep is a mortal sin”

The psychology and biology which Gerson exposes here is quite interesting.

Quarto 8 x 6 Inches unsigned [a-b8].(the first leaf blank and present) This copy is bound in 19th century boards. The type seems quite archaic and has a roundish face and is called “lettre de somme” for a book from 1480. It is very similar to Zel’s type, (see the image below).

Medieval manuscripts (clockwise): Gawain and the Green Knight, John Lydgate’s Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, The Book of the Queen by Christine de Pizan; The Wycliffite Bible, The Canterbury Tales and another page from The Lives of Saints. Composite: British Library Board

The shaky writing of the 13th-century annotator known as the Tremulous Hand, who is believed to have made as many as 50,000 notes on Old English manuscripts in an attempt to make them comprehensible to later readers, is revealed in all its wobbly glory by a new project from the British Library.

The Tremulous Hand is thought today to have suffered from the nerve condition known as “essential tremor”, which results in uncontrollable shaking. He worked on at least 20 Old English manuscripts stored in Worcester. By the 13th century, Old English was no longer spoken in England, and his glosses between the lines of text and in the margins were written in Middle English and Latin, essentially translating bits of the text for his contemporaries. “In other places, he clarified word division and punctuation, and changed spellings. Sometimes he added a doodle, or notamark,” according to the British Library.

A 13th-century manuscript written by the Tremulous Hand. Photograph: The British Library Board

One of the manuscripts on which the Tremulous Hand worked is part of the British Library’s free new online resource, Discovering Literature: Medieval, which brings together digitised copies of more than 50 medieval manuscripts spanning the fifth to the 15th centuries, and includes some of the period’s most valuable texts, such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Incredibly fragile, the Beowulf manuscript dates back to the 11th century, and survives in a single manuscript that was singed in a fire in the 18th century.

“The Tremulous Hand was from one of the last generations who would have understood Old English. The language was changing a huge amount, and Old English was no longer spoken generally,” said the British Library’s Mary Wellesley, a specialist in medieval manuscripts. “In a way, we’re pleased he had this essential tremor, because it means we can identify his work on a huge number of manuscripts … He was interested in preservation [and his work] is a metaphor, in a way, for what we’re trying to do with these manuscripts today.”

Covering medieval drama, epic poetry, dream visions and riddles, the British Library project includes the eighth-century illuminated manuscript of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which Wellesley called “the first great piece of English historical writing”. Describing Christianity in Roman Britain, and the arrival of St Augustine in Kent, it recounts how the English were converted to Christianity.

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Bede also tells of the first named English poet, a cowherd named Cædmon who lived at the Abbey of Whitby. According to Bede, Cædmon was one of his age’s greatest poets, but initially, “he was so shy that when the harp came out at parties he would hide,” said Wellesley. But then, Bede recounts, Cædmon had a vision; when he awoke he performed the song he had sung in the dream, amazing everyone.

“All of Cædmon’s poems are lost, but Bede gives a report of one of them – it’s a wonderfully compressed piece of poetic verse,” said Wellesley.

We have these precious pieces of our literary heritage that we need to preserve, but we also need to make them available

Mary Wellesley, a specialist in medieval manuscripts

The collection contains many works that have been digitised for the first time, giving the general reader their first access to manuscripts dating back hundreds of years. Two Chaucer manuscripts are included in the Discovering Literature project: a copy of his dream vision, the Parliament of Fowls, in which a group of birds gather on “seynt valentynes day” to choose a mate, believed to be the origin of the idea that 14 February is for lovers; and his Legend of Good Women, an unfinished work that he began in 1386, in which the narrator is chastised by the God of Love and his queen for his treatment of women in prior works.

Several notable early works by female writers also feature in the collection, including early printed extracts of Margery Kempe’s book, the earliest known autobiography in English. These are taken from a drastically edited print from 1501 that effectively silenced Kempe’s voice; her longer, original autobiography, also part of the collection, was discovered by chance in 1934, and restores the author’s own account of her mystical visions and travels. The anchoress Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, the first work authored by a woman in English, and The Book of the Queen by the French author Christine de Pizan, the first woman writer to earn a living from her work, also feature.

“A library is a memory, and the British Library is the nation’s memory,” said Wellesley. “We have these unbelievably precious pieces of our literary heritage and we need to preserve them, but we also need to make them available for new readers. That’s what this is about.”

Launched in 2014, the Discovering Literature site has so far received more than seven million visitors, according to the British Library. Its collections already cover Shakespeare and the Renaissance, the Romantic and Victorian periods, and 20th-century literature and drama, with the library planning to continue adding to the resource until “it covers the whole rich and diverse backbone of English literature, from The Canterbury Tales to The Buddha of Suburbia”.

Quarto. 8 x5 ½ inches : a-s6 t-v4 x-z6 (lacking one leaf x2 ( folio cxvii) aa-cc6 dd4.. This copy is bound in late 19th century quarter calf & marbled paper boards, rubbed with, light soiling and water stains. Numerous early or contemporary notes. And three full pages of notes at the end.

An epitome in verse of Raymond of Peñafort’s Summa de poenitentia et matrimonio, with commentary and interlinear glosses. More than simply a list of sins and suggested penances, it discussed pertinent doctrines and laws of the Church that pertained to the problem or case brought to the confessor, and is widely considered an authoritative work on the subject

Copies in the U.S.:
1)Harvard
2)Library of Congress,
3)Univ. of California
4)Yale Univ.

FIRST EDITION of the major work by William of Auxerre., William treats creation, natural law, the nature of man, a tripartite God, usury, end the Last Judgment, disquisition on usury and the natural law basis of economic matters among other topics. He applies the critical reasoning of classical philosophy to that of scholastic philosophy.
The “Summa Aurea”, which is not, as it is sometimes described, a mere compendium of the “Books of Sentences” by Peter the Lombard. Both in method and in content it shows a considerable amount of originality, although, Summæ it discusses many problems neglected by the Lombard and passes over others. It is divided into four books: The One and True God (bk. 1); creation, angels, and man (bk. 2); Christ and the virtues (bk. 3); Sacraments and the four last things (bk. 4).
Us copies:
Astrik L. Gabriel, Notre Dame IN,
Boston Public, Bryn Mawr, Columbia ,
Huntington, Univ.of Chicago, Univ. of Wisconsin
Goff G718; BMC VIII, 122 ; GW 11861; Proctor 8206 ; Polain 1787 ; Bod-inc G-295; Sheppard 6326; Pr 8206;

Summa de veritate celeberrimi doctoris sancti Thome Aquinatis…”First written around 1256, Thomas Aquinas’ “Disputed Questions on Truth” defends “the view that truth consists of an adequation between the intellect and a thing. Aquinas develops a notion of truth of being (“ontological truth”) along with truth of the intellect (what might be called “logical truth”)” (Wippel, 295)
US COPIES
Columbia University, Huntington,
Library of Congress,
Mass Historical Society, Yale.

This treatise on magical practices was based on a speech Basin delivered in Paris before an assembly of cardinals in 1482. Basin was born 1445 in Zaragoza and he received his Doctors degree in Paris, having study there theology and canon law. In nine propositions he explains how people enlist the help of demons and if the practise of such diabolic magic makes a person a heretic. Basin states that magic arts, such as involving the invocation of demons and pacts must be been prohibited by all laws, civil and canon alike.

Only one copy in the US
: (not in Goff) Southern Methodist Univ., Bridwell Library

Following the reforms initiated under Abbot Immo, who imposed the Benedictine rule at Reichenau, Berno’s enlightened guidance the abbey reached its peak as a centre of learning, with a productive scriptorium, as a centre of Bendictine monasticism and eleventh-century liturgical and musical reforms in the German churches. At Reichenau he erected the tall western tower and transept that stand today on the island site of Reichenau-Mittelzell. [ UNESCO World Heritage Site #218] One of his most famous students was Hermann of Reichenau, who transmitted Arabic mathematics and astronomy to central Europe.
Muller, Bibl. Strasbourgeoise II, S. 179; VD 16 B-2051
No copy of this Edition in North America.

Boethius became the connecting link between the logical and metaphysical science of antiquity and the scientific attempts of the Middle Ages. His influence on medieval thought was still greater through his De consolatione philosophiae (written while in prison at Pavia) and the theological writings attributed to him. Whether Boethius was a Christian has been doubted; and it is certain that the Consolatio makes no mention of Christ, and all the comfort it contains it owes to the optimism of the Neoplatonic school and to the stoicism of Seneca. Nevertheless, for a long time the book was read with the greatest reverence by all Christendom, and its author was regarded as a martyr for the true faith” (Schaff-Herzog). GW ascribes the commentary on De consolatione to Thomas Waleys.
The colophon has an interesting Acrostic reading
“CONRADUS”
Not in Goff. H 3402; C 1103 = 1114; Pell 2502 & 2557; CIBN B-576; Hillard 431; Aquilon 149; Arnoult 309; Parguez 229; Péligry 196; Polain(B) 4217; IGI 1827; Kind (Göttingen) 232; Pr 8513A; BMC VIII 238.
262J Saint Bonaventura (1217-1274)

Vita christi. (Meditationes vitae Christi)

[Paris: Philippe Pigouchet, about 1487]. $11,000

[Originally assigned by BL to Caillaut and sometimes attributed to Johannes de Caulibus (BBFN Inc p.119f)]

Quarto 7 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches a-i8. 72 leaves of 72. This copy is completely rubricated, paragraph signs and underlining in red, and bound in an early (but later) limp vellum binding.
This work’s precise date of composition, and its author, has occasioned much debate. Until the late nineteenth century, it was traditionally ascribed to Bonaventure. Once it was realised that the work was not by him, but by an unknown author, the ascription was changed to pseudo-Bonaventure, now of unknown author. It has since been thought to be the work of a Franciscan friar.
Newly discovered documentary evidence showed that the work was indeed that of a Franciscan, and was written around 1300 by Jacobus de Sancto Geminiano, who is also identifiable as the leader of a revolt of Tuscan spirituals, one of the Fraticelli, in 1312.
The work’s popularity in the Middle Ages is evidenced by the survival of over two hundred manuscript copies, including seventeen illuminated ones. The popularity of the work increased further with early printed editions, with a surviving Venetian blockbook of 1497.

The work’s detailed evocations of moments from the Gospels influenced art, and it has been shown to be the source of aspects of the iconographyof the fresco cycle of the Life of Christ in the Scrovegni Chapel by Giotto. It has also been credited with inspiring the great increase in depictions of the Veil of Veronica from the late 14th century.
World wide holdings:

One of the earliest editions most likely the Second, (editio princeps : Venice 1470)

This copy contains the fifteen books of the “Praeparatio evangelica,” whose purpose is “to justify the Christian in rejecting the religion and philosphy of the Greeks in favor of that of the Hebrews, and then to justify him in not observing the Jewish manner of life […] “The following summary of its contents is taken from Mr. Gifford’s introduction to his translation of the “Praeparitio:

The first three books discuss the threefold system of Pagan Theology: Mythical, Allegorical, and Political. The next three, IV-VI, give an account of the chief oracles, of the worship of demons, and of the various opinions of Greek Philosophers on the doctrines of Fate and Free Will. Books VII-IX give reasons for preferring the religion of the Hebrews founded chiefly on the testimony of various authors to the excellency of their Scriptures and the truth of their history. In Books X-XII Eusebius argues that the Greeks had borrowed from the older theology and philosphy of the Hebrews, dwelling especially on the supposed dependence of Plato upon Moses. In the the last three books, the comparson of Moses with Plato is continued, and the mutual contradictions of other Greek Philosphers, especially the Peripatetics and Stoics, are exposed and criticized.”

The “Praeparitio” is a gigantic feat of erudition, and according to Harnack (Chronologie, II, p. 120), was, like many of Eusebius’ other works, actually composed during the stress of the persecution. It ranks, with the Chronicle, second only to the Church History in importance, because of its copious extracts from ancient authors, whose works have perished.” (CE)

It is also very interesting because of its numerous lively fragments from historians and philosophers which are nowhere else preserved, e.g. a summary of the writings of the Phoenician priest Sanchuniathon, or the account from Diodorus Siculus’ sixth book of Euhemerus’ wondrous voyage to the island of Panchaea, and writings of the neo-Platonist philosopher Atticus.

The present Horae are illustrated with 22 full-page engravings in the text and numerous and smaller cuts, metalcut historiated and ornamental borders on every page, many with criblé grounds, depicting biblical scenes, the Virtues, the stag hunt, apple harvest and memento mori vignettes depicting including Pigouchet’s Dance of Death series (Claudin II, 53-53)

Folio 14 ½ X 9 inches *4, **4, A-Z4, Aa-Gg4-Zz4, Aaa-Ooo4, Ppp6.
First edition. This copy is bound in full original calf with a gilt spine with an expertly executed early rebacking. The vovell sheets are present but not cut or placed. And two very large foldouts A complete copy with the usual browing.

Ars Magna Sciendi’ is Kircher’s exploration and development of the ‘Combinatoric Art’ of Raymond Lull, the thirteenth century philosopher. Kircher attempts in this monumental work to classify knowledge under the nine ideal attributes of God, which were taken to constitute the pattern for all creation. In the third chapter of this book is presented a new and universal version of the Llullistic method of combination of notions. Kircher seems to be convinced that the Llullistic art of combination is a secret and mystical matter, some kind of esoteric doctrine. In contrast with Llull, who used Latin words, words with clearly defined significations for his combinations, Kircher began filling the tables with signs and symbols of a different kind. By doing this Kircher was attempting to penetrate symbolic representation itself. (forming a ‘symbolic-Logic)
Kircher tried to calculate the possible combinations of all limited alphabets (not only graphical, but also mathematical). He considered himself a grand master of decipherment and tried to (and thought he did) translate Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, he felt that knowledge was a process of encoding and decoding. His tabula generalis, the more mathematical way of thinking created the great difference between Llull and Kircher.
Sommervogel 1066.28; Merrill 22; Ferguson I. 467; Brunet III, 666; Caillet II, 360.5771; Clendening 10.17; De Backer I, 429-30.23; Graesse IV, 21; Reilly #26.
957G Richard Mediavilla [Middleton], d. 1302/3

Middleton’s Commentary on Peter Lombard’s ‘Sentences’ was probably begun in 1281 and was completed in 1284, when he became regent master of the Franciscan school in Paris, a post he held until 1287. The chief characteristic of his Commentary is its sober assessment of many of the positions of Thomas Aquinas. However, the tone of his eighty Quodlibet Questions, produced during his regency, is much more critical and on many issues shows a strong anti-Thomist reaction. In this they have more in common with his disputed questions, which were argued after the condemnations of 1277 but before his Sentences commentary. The latter commentary has been edited along with his Quodlibet Questions. A small number of his disputed questions have also been edited, as have six of his sermons.

Furthermore; nine questions (23 to 31) in this volume form a veritable treatise on demonology, a rare type in the thirteenth century. Mediavilla’s remark is singular: he is the only thinker who gives autonomy of existence to the demon, in the framework of a rational description.
Mediavilla focuses on the present of the devil and its modes of action on men. He is the great thinker of the demonic turn of the 1290s.
This text offers one of the origins of a Western genre, the “novel of Satan”
The questions of volume IV
23. Did the first sin of the angel come from a good principle?
24. Can the angel at the moment of his creation sin?
25 . In the first sin of the angel, was the comparison of the creature anterior, according to the order of nature, to the distancing from God?
26. Was the first sin of the angel pride?
27 . Did the evil angel repent of his pride?
28 . In the evil angels, does sin follow another sin without end?
29. Does the sorrow of the evil angels leave her with a certain joy?
30 . Would the evil angels not be?
31 . Can bad angels play our sensations?
See also Satan the Heretic: The Birth of Demonology in the Medieval West November 15, 2006 by Alain Boureau (Author), Teresa Lavender Fagan (Translator)

Manuscript copy of : Short-writing, the most easie, exact, lineal, and speedy method that hath ever been obtained, or taught. Composed by Theophilus Metcalfe, author and professor of the said art. The last edition. With a new table for shortning of words. Which book is able to make the practitioner perfect without a teacher. As many hundreds in this city and elsewhere, that are able to write sermons word for word, can from their own experience testifie.

England: after 1689 and before 1717 $5,500
Octavo 6 x 4 inches . 55, [7]pp. + portrait of author. The last section of 7 pp. contains Directions for Book-keeping after the Italian Method.
This manuscript is bound in full modern calf. This copybook manuscript is taken from the last edition published by Metcalfe. The entire work is done with remarkable calligraphy. This is a rare copy manuscript item with complementary addendum on Italian Book-Keeping.

Theophilus Metcalfe (bap. 1610 – c.1645) was an English stenographer.
He invented a shorthand system that became popular, in particular, in New England, where it was used to record the Salem witch trials.

Metcalfe was A professional writer and teacher of shorthand, Metcalfe in 1645 resided in the London parish of St Katharine’s by the Tower. He died that year or early in 1646, when his widow assigned rights to reissue the book of his system. Metcalfe published a stenographic system very much along the lines of Thomas Shelton’s Tachygraphy. The first edition of his work was entitled Radio-Stenography, or Short Writing and is supposed to have been published in 1635. A so-called sixth edition appeared at London in 1645. It was followed in 1649 by A Schoolmaster to Radio-Stenography, explaining all the Rules of the said Art, by way of Dialogue betwixt Master and Scholler, fitted to the weakest capacities that are desirous to learne this Art. Many editions of the system appeared under the title of Short Writing: the most easie, exact, lineall, and speedy Method that hath ever yet been obtained or taught by any in this Kingdome.
238J Peregrinus of Opole (1305-12, 1322-27) Jacobus de Voragine (1229-1298) & Nicolaus de Dinkelsbuel (1360-1433) Peregrinus: Sermones de tempore et de sanctis. Add: Jacobus de Voragine: Quadragesimale. Nicolaus de Dinkelsbuel: Concordantia in passionem dominicam

[Ulm: Johann Zainer, not after 1479] (A copy now in Munich BSB has an ownership inscription dated 1479) $19,000

Folio. “Pars I (188): a-d8, e-k8/6, l-m8, A-C8, D-I8/6, K-N8; (N8 blank and removed) “Pars II (50.): a-f8/6, g8;” 3.”Pars III (40.): A-E8/ [276 (instead of 278) The two blank leaves are missing. 162 & 188
¶ Peregrinus of Opole, was a Silesian Dominican friar, Prior in Wrocław and Racibórz and Provincial of the Polish-East German Order Province. “The numerous manuscripts and early prints testify to the popularity of his ‘Sermones de tempore et de sanctis'” (LThK VIII, 82). He was twice elected a provincial of his Order and became designated an inquisitor of Wrocław by the pope John XXII. His major literary achievement is this twofold collection of Latin sermons: Sermones de tempore (sermons on the feasts of the liturgical year) and Sermones de sanctis (sermons on feasts of particular saints).

¶ Jacobus de Voragine wrote several series of sermons, The Lenten sermons (Quadragesimale) were written between 1277 and 1286. These sermons were only slightly less popular than his “Legend,” and also known as ‘Golden’ on account of their popularity (there are more than 300 known manuscript copies). The genre of the Sermones quadragesimale did not exist as a distinct genre before the 1260’s This Dominican best-seller author Jacopo da Voragine, and the works of preachers from his own generation, like Peregrinus von Opeln [See above] have a strong sermo modernus structure and contain numerous exempla drawn from the world of nature.

¶Nicolaus de Dinkelsbuel. Magister in 1390, BUT The ascription of the Concordantia to Nicolaus de Dinkelsbühl (c 1360-1433) is mistaken. Although he is known as the author of a passion story ( Collecta et praedicata de passione Christi. 1472). he did not produce a concordance to it, But he is in fact listed as one of the authors cited in the work. (See A Madre, Nicolaus de Dinkelsbühl, Leben und Schriften, 1965, p 310.)
Only two North American copies, both defective.
Harvard University (- ff 189-278)
Bryn Mawr College, (ff 239-278)

Quarto. 10 x 8 ½ inches. a-e8, f4 (44 0f 44) leaves (complete)
Italy, the centre of humanism, produced the best logicians of the Renaissance. Paulus Pergulensis (d. 1451) was a pupil of Paul of Venice, author of the Logica magna and parva.. Introducing the theory of reference, sometimes called supposition, is an explanation of the ways in which words refer to objects in function of certain linguisitc signs.

Paul of Venice maintains a threefold division: Material Reference, Simple Reference, and Personal Reference, all of which are identified. The present is a more succinct and highly systematized logic, composed entirely in the form of theses.
From 1420 to 1454 Pergulensis taught logic and natural philosophy, and then also mathematics, astronomy and theology, to the Venetian school of Rialto (founded in 1408 ), to which he gave a real university organization. He was nominated ( 1448 ) bishop of Koper, which he renounced so as not to leave the teaching. We are left of him, manuscripts or press, some treatises of logic ( Dubia in consequentias Strodi , De sensu composite and divided , In regulas insolubilium , De scire et dubitare , Compendium logicae ), in which he discusses the new logical doctrines of the Oxford school in Padua by Paolo Veneto.

Paul of Pergula became the first publicly paid lecturer in philosophy in Venice, where he was officially honored in a public ceremony. In 1448, he was offered a bishopric, which he refused, and at the end of his life he accepted the administration of the Church of Saint John Almoner. He translated some works of Aristotle from Greek to Latin and was considered “on a par with the renowned Greek and Latin philosophers” (Brown, pp. vi-vii). Depending on the Logica Parva of Paul of Venice, De sensu composito et diviso should be regarded as a “mosaic of the treasury of logic known at the time” (Brown, p. viii).

Octavo 5 ½ x 3 ¾ inches. a-s8t4. This copy is bound in modern vellum over boards with a tie.

This little guide on the sacrements for novice priests was written by the fourteenth century Spanish Theologian. No doubt that this small size was to accomidate the Priest who needed to carry with him. This also explains the scarcity, now while in the fifteenth century Bast estimates that sales of this maunel, were three times those of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. By the next century the Council of Trent and the creation of the Roman Catechism made this book obsolete in 1565. This edition is know in only three copies worldwide.

(Bast, Robert James (2000). Continuity and change: the harvest of late medieval and Reformation history: essays presented to Heiko A. Oberman on his 70th birthday. BRILL. p. 117. ISBN 978-90-04-11633-7.”)

CIBN differentiates a Printer of Guido de Monte Rochen from the Printer of Persius, who is there identified with Maillet (cf. CIBN S-334 and T-36) and GW identifiates tentatively the printer with Topié

Number of holding institutions 3
1) Italy Aosta Sem:
2) Romania Bucharest BN:
3) United States : Brown Univ.
252J. Timothy Rogers (1658-1728)
A discourse concerning trouble of mind and the disease of melancholly :
in three parts : written for the use of such as are, or have been exercised by the same subject.

London : Printed for Thomas Parkhurst, and Thomas Cockerill at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside, and at the Three Legs in the Poultrey 1691. $2, 800
Octavo 6 ½ x 4 inches. A8 a-d8 e4 B-2E8
“Rogers was educated at Glasgow University, where he matriculated in 1673, and then studied under Edward Veal at Wapping. Rogers began his career in the dissenting ministry as evening lecturer at Crosby Square, Bishopsgate. Some time after 1682 he was struck down by a form of hypochondria, from which he recovered in 1690, and then became assistant to John Shower. Shower was then minister of the Presbyterian congregation in Jewin Street, and moved in 1701 to the Old Jewry Meeting-house. Rogers’s hypochondria returned, and in 1707 he left the ministry .(DNB)

Rogers cautions not to blame the devil for this depression:

“Rogers’s detailed instructions on how to care for patients suffering from `trouble of mind’, especially from `melancholly’ of the religious kind, are particularly valuable because they were written from personal experience; as the extract shows much of his advice can still be usefully applied by the psychiatrist and the psychiatric nurse today.
In his late twenties he had his first breakdown, ‘a deep and settled melancholy’ lasting two years. On his recovery he wrote this book as an offering ‘for his wonderful restoration’, to discharge ‘the Duty of those Persons whom God hath delivered from Melancholy, and from the anguish of their Consciences’ and to show `What is to be thought of those that are distracted with Trouble for their sins’. However he continued ever after subject to ‘a very unhappy dejection of mind . . . a prey to gloomy fears and apprehensions’, so that he was forced to retire into the country where he continued to manifest ‘though in a more contracted sphere, the same zeal for the honour of God, and for the salvation of the souls of men’.” (300 years of Psychiatry, Richard Hunter, 1963, p248)

O
ration such as this are usually rare and short this one is both it is a tribute from the City of Lucca to the election of Pope Alexander VI. This is one of three almost simultaneously published prints of this on October 25, 1492 before the newly elected Borgia Pope Alexander VI. held this speech. – “”This was the typical ‘Oratio’ – in the style of the times, both florid and unctous – which extolled the virtues of the Pope, traits which subsequent events failed to confirm!”” (Bühler) According to Bühler’s study, The Freitag printing was preceded by the editions of Stephan Planck (in Roman type) , whose corrections Freitag employed in his edition.”

Even in the Brothers of the Common Life’s community of “plain living and high thinking” Gerard ZERBOLT was remarkable for his absorption in the sacred sciences and his utter oblivion of all matters of merely earthly interest. He held the office of librarian, and his deep learning in moral theology and canon law did the brothers good service, in helping them to meet the prejudice and opposition which their manner of life at first aroused. In Radewijns’ absence, Zerbolt assumed his responsibilities as rector.

This is the inaugural treatise by Gerard Zerbolt of Zütphen, described by Post (in “The Modern Devotion”) as “the most fertile and the most successful writer the Brothers [of the Common Life] ever produced.” Zerbolt was an early member of the “Devotio Moderna” and served as librarian to the Brethren of the Common Life in Deventer. Despite his lack of university training, he “was remarkable for his absorption in the sacred sciences and his utter oblivion of all matters of merely earthly interest.” (Cath. Ency.) Here, Zerbolt outlines how one can redeem the soul from its fallen state, moving to higher and higher levels through “self-knowledge, repentance, combat of sin, mortification, the practice of humility and obedience.” (Post)

Octavo, First and only edition A-B8 C6 .
Like Coverdale, Joye was probably also employed in the printing business as proofreader, translator, and author of religious books.
His first, now lost publication was a Primer, the first Protestant devotional book ever published in English. Based on contemporary accounts, it probably contained the translation of the seven penitential psalms, “Mattens and Euensong” with the Commendations (Psalm 119. The book was criticized by Thomas More for omitting the Litany of the Saints, the hymns and anthems to the Blessed Virgin, and the Dirge.
After the publication of his Primer, containing perhaps as many as thirty psalms, Joye set out to translate the rest of the Book of Psalms, which appeared in 1530. Joye used Martin Bucer’s recent Latin translation of the Hebrew text, which was published under the pseudonym Aretius Felinus. In the same year Joye produced a revised version of his earlier primer with the title Ortolus animae. The garden of the soule. In 1531, Joye’s translation of the Book of Isaiah appeared, which seems to have been intended as a twin volume to Tyndale’s translation of the Book of Jonah. In 1531 Joye also published a defence countering the charges of heresy put against him by Ashwell in 1527.
Butterworth and Chester suggest that Joye published the translations of the Book of Proverbs and of Ecclesiastes in 1533 in Antwerp, of which only later London reprints have survived. It is now also believed that Joye is the author of an anonymously published treatise entitled The Souper of the Lorde, which was earlier attributed to Tyndale. In this Joye described his position on the Eucharist, based on that of Zwingli. Joye’s translation of the Book of Jeremiah, of Lamentations, and a new translation of the Psalter followed (this time from the Latin Psalter of Zwingli, whose Latin commentaries and translations had also served as source texts for Joye’s translations of the other books of the Old Testament). All these translations were the first of these books ever printed in English. In 1534 Joye undertook the proofreading of Tyndale’s New Testament edition that had been reprinted three times without any English-speaking corrector by the Flemish printing firm of the family Van Ruremund. Joye, however, not only corrected the typographical errors, but he also changed the term “resurreccion” as found in Tyndale’s text by expressions such as “the lyfe after this” in some twenty occurrences of the word.[14] Joye believed, as he later explained, that the original term in the Bible in those places did not refer to the bodily resurrection but to the intermediate stateof the soul.[15] At the same time, Joye retained Tyndale’s original formulation at the some 150 other occurrences of the word, where he agreed with Tyndale that the term did refer to the bodily resurrection.[16] Tyndale reacted by bringing out his own revised version of his New Testament in November 1534, in which he inserted a second foreword attacking Joye and his editorial work. Tyndale accused Joye of promoting the heresy of the denial of the bodily resurrection and causing divisions among Protestants. After an inconclusive attempt to reconcile the parties, Joye published an apology to refute Tyndale’s accusations in February 1535.

“This is universally recognized as the best-known and most influential of Robert Estienne’s works. Renouard went so far as to say that this volume alone would have sufficed to establish Robert Estienne’s reputation as scholar and printer. However, of all Robert Estienne’s publications, it is also the one most directly responsible for his departure to Geneva, following his final clash with the theologians of the Sorbonne, who saw in Estienne’s marginal variant readings an instance of the most brazen heresy.

The Nevv Testament of Iesus Christ, translated faithfully into English, out of the authentical Latin, according to the best corrected copies of the same, diligently conferred vvith the Greeke and other editions in diuers languages; vvith arguments of bookes and chapters, annotations, and other necessarie helpes, for the better vnderstanding of the text, and specially for the discouerie of the corruptions of diuers late translations, and for cleering the controversies in religion, of these daies: in the English College of Rhemes.

The First Catholic New Testament in English This copy is bound in seventeenth-century calf, sympathetically rebacked, with an attractive gold-tooled floral motif to the board edges. Internally, this copy is in very good condition with clean leaves. There is a little foxing to the first two leaves and a few trivial marginal tears. The upper margin is cut a bit close but the text is never affected.

“The ‘editio princeps’ of the Roman Catholic version of the New Testament in English. Translated from the Vulgate by Gregory Martin, under the supervision of William Allen and Richard Bristow. According to the “Douai Diaries”, Martin began the translation in October1578 and completed it in March 1582.

“The translation adheres very closely to the Latin, though it shows traces of careful comparison with the Greek. But its groundwork was practically supplied by the existing English versions, from which Martin did not hesitate t borrow freely. In particular there are very many striking resemblances between Martin’s renderings and those in Coverdale’s diglot of 1538. Martin’s own style is often disfigured by Latinisms.
“This Rheims New Testament exerted a very considerable influence on the King James version of 1611, transmitting to it not only an extensive vocabulary, but also numerous distinctive phrases and turns of expression. (See J.G. Carleton’s exhaustive analysis, The Part of Rheims in the Making of the English Bible. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902.)

Quarto Title from Renouard, Annales de l’imprimerie des Estienne] Robert Stephens’s first edition (Paris, 1539-44, 4 vols.). This was not published as a whole, but in parts, each having a title. The first part that was published was ישעיה ספר, or Prophetia Isaice (ibid. 1539). Of variations, we subjoin the following: 1, 25,!סיגי; ve. 29, מאלים 3:16, וּמשִׁקרוֹת 6:5, נדמתי; 8:6, השלּח (dagesh in ל); ren. 13, מערצכם; 10:15, ואת ver. 16, כבודו; ver. 18, כמסום; ver. 33, ישפרו, etc. The second part contained the twelve minor prophets (1539); the third, the Psalms (1540); the fourth, the Proverbs (1540); in the same year also Jeremiah, Daniel, the five Megilloth; in 1541, Job, Ezra, Ezekiel; in 1543, Chronicles, the former prophets, and the Pentateuch.
Adams; B-1221; BM STC France, 1470-1600,; p. 56; Darlow & Moule,; 5089, note; Armstrong, E. Robert Estienne (1954),; p. 32-33

187J Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)

A Defence of The True and Catholike doctrine of the sacrament of the body and bloud of our sauiour Christ, with a confutation of sundry errors concernyng the same, grounded and stablished vpon Goddes holy woorde, & approued by ye consent of the moste auncient doctors of the Churche. Made by the moste Reuerende father in God Thomas Archebyshop of Canterbury, Primate of all Englande and Metropolitane.

Quarto: *4, A-Z4, Aa-Gg4 $28,000
This copy is bound in contemporary, blind-stamped English calf with small medallion portrait rolls. The boards are composed of printer’s waste taken from John Bale’s ” Illustrium Maioris Britanniae Scriptorum” of 1548. The text block is backed with vellum manuscript fragments. Both the binding and the text are in strictly original condition.

In Cranmer’s response to Gardiner, “A Defence of the True and Catholike doctrine of the sacrament of the body and bloud of our sauiour Christ”, the archbishop offers a semi-official explanation of the Eucharistic theology that lay at the heart of his Prayer Book.
STC 6002 (with catchwords B4r “des”, S1r “before”.) Title page border: McKerrow & Ferguson 73; Printer’s device: McKerrow 119. References: Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Thomas Cranmer, A Life”; G.W. Broniley, “Thomas Cranmer, Theologian”.)
186J Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam (1466-1538)
The First Tome (and second) or Volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus upon the newe testament.
Enpriented at London in fletestete at the signe of the sunne by Edwarde Whitchurche, the last daie of Januarie, 1548. $38,000

Two Small Folio volumes 7.6 x 10.75 in. First edition. Vol I: ( )6, (:)6, A-Q6, R4, (:)6, Aa6, B-O6 (leaf O6 blank and present), ¶6, (::)6, a-z6, aa-dd6, ee8, A-R6, S8, A-N6, O4 [lacking final leaf O4]. 565 leaves. “O4 is missing in all the copies examined, but it may be assumed that the recto is blank and the verso contains device McKerrow 107.” –Devereux.
Vol II: †6, ††6, ¶4, A-G6, H2, Aa-Ff6, Gg8, Hh-Kk6, Ll4, aa-cc6, dd4 (dd4 blank and present), ¶6 (¶6 blank and present), AA-BB6, CC4 (CC4 blank and present), AAa6, BBb4, aaaa6, bbbb4, AAAa-BBBb6 (BBBb6 blank and present), AAAA-EEEE6, FFFF4, AAAAa-DDDDd6, EEEEe4 (EEEEe4 blank and present), *2, ¶-¶H6, ¶I8, ¶¶A-¶¶F6, ¶¶G4. 362 leaves
Complete copies of these volumes are rare; complete “sets” extremely so. The “First Tome” and “Seconde Tome” are independent publications. Copies of the “First Tome”, which bear the generic date of January 1548 (“The date itself seems to be 1548, not 1548/9; copies were bought before the autumn of 1548”-Devereux). The “second Tome” was not begun until the autumn of 1548 and did not appear in print until 1549, with the date of August 16. Thus, few “sets” exist as such.
“The impact of Erasmus’ ‘Paraphrases’ was enormous. Like his edition of the Greek New Testament and his ‘Annotations’, the ‘Paraphrases’ made the Bible increasingly more accessible to ordinary people. In his dedicatory epistle to the paraphrase on Mark, Erasmus expresses satisfaction at seeing ‘Christian literature, and especially the New Testament, studied so eagerly by everyone, even laymen in private station, that professional experts in the Scriptures are quite often worsted by them in debate.’”(Erika Rummel)

Small Folio 8 X 6 1/2 inches . *6, A-08, P4, Q6 complete ([12], 224, [20])
Bound in modern carta rustic ,recently resewin on three leather cords It is bound in the style of mid-sixteenth century, thinner cartonnage with turn-ins to stabilize the edges of the cover. This is a very solid and stable copy, ready to be researched with, despite the water staining.

This copy has Extensive sixteenth-century MS marginal and interlineal annotations, underlinings etc., throughout; in Latin. There is inter linear notes on every section of Cicero’s text but very few notes on Strébée’s commentary.

Of the 224 pages, about 150 have notes in a small and sometimes very faint sixteenth century hand. On the Printed title there is quite a bit of pen-starts and doodles as well as faint ownership signatures . ( There is a copy in the University of Manchester Library UML copy at R229539, which is catalogued as having extensive notes as well.)
Before the Printed text the annotator has written an “Argumentum”
175J Martin Luther (1483-1546)

This treatise was published by Luther in the form of an open letter. This is a responce to Luthers friend Graff Wolfgang Schlick. This Anti-Jewish polemic was to refute those who argued that Christians ought to observe practices of God’s covenant with Israel (the Old Testament, or Judaism) that Christians historically either had set aside or had changed with the coming of Christ, but which the Jewish people had continued to practice. One of these Old Testament practices, to observe the Sabbath on Saturday (rather than on Sunday, as Christians had done historically), gave rise to the name that Luther uses for his opponents: “the Sabbatarians.” In Part One of the work, Luther argues that God’s covenant with Israel, also called the Law of Moses, is not in force for Christians. Yet he goes on below to say that those parts of the Ten Commandments that are based on the universal moral law remain in force for everyone because that law preceded the Law of Moses.

Quarto 6 ¾ x 5 ½ inches. A4,B2 . Bound in 19th century boards.
This is a rare edition of the famous writing in which Luther verifies the asceticism of the church. The offense to this writing was the liberation of some nuns by Leonh.
The names of these nuns are mentioned at the end; among them also Luther’s later wife Katharina Bora.
VD16 L 6882; Benzing. Lutherbibliographie; 1989, 1565; |B|Luther: WA T,; 11, 389; Druck E; |B|Kratzsch: Verzeichnis der Lutherdrucke, Nr.; 453; Kuzynski 3299.
171J Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531)

Octavo 6 x 4 inches.[12] f. ; 8° A8, B4. The very rare, First Edition, bound in manuscript vellum with a long tie.
This Book has been referred to by W. Boyd in his History of western Education 1964, as :
“ The first book to be written on education from a Protestant point of: view”
“Whereas critics deem it a loose collection of personal observations about raising teenagers, the treatise in fact contains a clear summary of the biblical principles supporting Christian education. More precisely, it is one of the first treatises to discuss nurture of the young from an explicitly Reformed point of view. And “On the Education of the Youth” makes an eloquent case for the role of education in developing the moral as well as intellectual qualities of the young. Zwingli makes observations about the basis of Reformed instruction, the formation of an upright moral character, and the service to others that should result from proper nurture.” … Zwingli states that the object of learning is the universe and all that it contains. As the created order, the universe is subservient to the Creator. When we study the elements that make up the universe, “we learn that all these things are changing and destructible, but that he who conjoined them … is necessarily unchanging and immutable (104).” Thus the very things studied by humans reveal that there is someone superior to them and their learning, namely God. As human creatures fashioned by the eternal, omnipotent God, mortals should be humbled rather than exalted in their learning. In studying things brought into existence by the word of God, we are “taught that all things are ordained by the providence of God (104).” Wisdom is not to be sought in human philosophies, for they are as mortal and fallible as the people who conceive them. Rather, since all the objects of human enquiry are in the hands of God, “if we desire wisdom or learning, we are taught to ask it of Him alone (105)” and to seek it in His infallible Word. (Huldrych Zwingli on Reformed Instruction) – Dr. R. Faber Taken With permission from Clarion Vol. 48, No. 1 (1999). VD 16, Z-855

275J James Ferrand

Εροτομανια Or A Treatise Discoursing of the Essence, Causes, Symptomes, Prognosticks, and Cure of Love, or EROTIQUE MELANCHOLY.

Oxford: by L. Lichfield to be sold by Edward Forrest, 1640. $6,900

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A nevv orchard and garden or The best way for planting, grafting, and to make any ground good, for a rich orchard: particularly in the north, and generally for the whole kingdome of England, as in nature, reason, situation, and all probabilitie, may and doth appeare. Wit the country housewifes garden for hearbes of common vse their vertues, seasons, profits, ornaments, varietie of knots, models for trees, and plots for the best ordering of grounds and walkes. As also the husbandry of bees, with their seuerall vses and annoyances all being the experience of 48. yeares labour, and now the second time corrected and much enlarged, by William Lawson. Whereunto is newly added the art of propagating plants, with the true ordering of all manner of fruits, in their gathering, carring home & preseruation.

London: Printed by Nicholas Okes, for Iohn Harison, at the golden Vnicorne in Pater-noster-row, 1631. $1,900

Quarto.A⁴ B-I⁸ K⁴ (last leaf blank).

This copy is disbound in a folding cloth binder There are a few woodcut illustrations. Minor wear, one leaf cropped close with slight loss; a very nice copy.

This is an early issue of this horticultural classic, first published in 1618, and notable for the inclusion of Lawson’s Country House-Wife’s Garden, the first book on the subject specifically written for women, and one of the most delightful gardening books in the language, illustrated with the oft-reproduced cuts of knot designs.

William Lawson was a writer on gardening and Church of England clergyman, was probably a member of the extensive northern English gentry family of Lawson, but his parents’ names are not known. He was ordained deacon in 1580, and became vicar of Ormesby, near Teesmouth, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, in 1583. He spent the rest of his life there. His first wife, Sibille, with whom he had two children, was buried at Ormesby in 1618; on 28 April 1619 he married Emme Tailer, who survived him. Lawson was a long-lived Yorkshire parson and a real ‘hands on’ gardener: he declares his book to be written from ‘my meer and sole experience, without respect to any former-written Treatise’. His two passions were orchards and bees and he covers all aspects of his subjects, soil management, planting and pruning, the construction of beehives, the control of various ‘nuisances’ (including birds, deer and moles) and the harvesting of fruits and honey.

Lawson refers several times to the difficulties of the local environment and warns his fellow northern gardeners to ‘meddle not with Apricockes nor Peaches, nor scarcely with Quinces, which will not like our cold parts’. He also stresses how important it is to keep bees in weatherproof accommodation using a good northern term to explain that the ‘nesh Bee can neither abide cold or wet’! However, he writes lyrically of the pleasures of an orchard: ‘your trees standing in comely order which way soever you look … your borders on every side hanging and drooping with Feberries, Raspberries, Barberries, Currents and the roots of your trees powdred with Strawberries, red,white and green, what pleasure is this?Interestingly, in his advice to the country housewife, Lawson advises that every household should maintain two gardens, a kitchen garden and a flower garden. He suggests that the reason for this is that ‘your garden flowers shall suffer some disgrace if among them you intermingle onions, parsnips etc’.

The woodcuts which illustrate the book are delightful (Lawson tell us that he instructed the publisher to expend ‘much cost and care … in having the Knots and Models by the best Artizan cut’) They include patterns for knot gardens (the little prancing horse and the man with a sword represent topiary designs) and images of gardeners, sporting some very jaunty headwear, digging and planting.

Lawson’s summary of the satisfaction to be gained from gardening remains as true today as it was for his seventeenth century readers: ‘whereas every other pleasure commonly fills some one of or senses, and that only, with delight, this makes all our senses swim in pleasure’.

This is Lawson’s only book, A new orchard and garden, has a dedication to a connection of one branch of the Lawsons, Sir Henry Belasyse. It was the first published work on gardening in the north of England, and its second section,

The Countrie Housewifes Garden, was the first horticultural work written specifically for women (there would not be another in English for a century). The ‘sound, clear, natural wit’ manifested in it was praised by John Beale forty years later (Beale, 14), Illustrated with cuts of tools, a garden plan, and knot designs.

Three libraries hold copies in the US!, Berkeley :University of Illinois :Yale

and now I will copy from GLASGOW UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DEPARTMENT

Book of the Month

July 2006

William Lawson

A New Orchard and Garden with The Country-Housewifes Garden for Herbs

London: 1648. Sp Coll Ferguson Ah-a.2

Our July choice is a popular Renaissance work on gardening, A new orchard and garden by William Lawson. It was printed together with the first horticultural book written solely for women, The country housewife’s garden. Both are full of sensible and practical advice, imbued with Lawson’s charming philosophy. For Lawson, working in the orchard and garden was the ideal kind of rest and relaxation: ‘For whereas every other pleasure commonly fills some one of our senses, and that only, with delight, this makes all our senses swim in pleasure, and that with infinite variety joyned with no lesse commodity’.

William Lawson (1553/4-1635) was the vicar of Ormesby, a country parish in Yorkshire. First and foremost a religious man who carried out his clerical duties most diligently, he was obviously also a keen gardener with considerable land. A man of some learning, he evidently read widely on agriculture and gardening, and his two works are also scattered with references to the classics. When he died he willed ‘all my latine books & mie English books of contraversie’ to his son William, which suggests that he may well have owned a relatively substantial library of books for the period.

A New Orchard and Garden and The Country Housewife’s Garden were Lawson’s only published works. They were first printed together in 1618* and proved popular enough to warrant further reprints in quick succession. The copy featured here is a later, enlarged edition from 1648, part of A Way to Get Wealth, a compilation of treatises on husbandry and other household matters by Gervase Markham.

Lawson dedicated his work to Sir Henry Belloses (Belasyse), a prominent Yorkshire baronet who was also an orchard enthusiast. In his dedication, Lawson thanks him for the profit he received from his ‘learned Discourse of Fruit trees’. However, in the preface following he is at pains to point out that his book is in fact a product of ‘my meer and sole experience, without respect to any former-written Treatise’. It is a result of forty eight years experience in working a northern garden. Occasionally in the text he refers to the difficulties of this environment. He advises his fellow northerners, for instance, to ‘meddle not with Apricockes nor Peaches, nor scarcely with Quinces, which will not like our cold parts’. This book can therefore be credited with being the first to deal with the northern garden.

Gardening had become a national passion in the Sixteenth Century. Then, as now, it was a recreation that brought peace and contentment, and Eyler suggests that it provided a welcome escape from the trials of a turbulent age. Renaissance interest was certainly sparked by the influence of Protestant refugees from the Continent, while an increase in travel abroad and geographical discovery brought back new plants and ideas. There was a subsequent demand for new knowledge and exchange of information, spurring the production of horticultural manuals such as this.

Although not published until 1618, Lawson’s work is really the product of an Elizabethan life. But it is interesting to note that in its practicality, it is also an example of the age of reason; at this time there was a growing preoccupancy with the workings of nature and science, and a burgeoning interest in subjects such as botany, concentrating on the useful qualities and medical virtues of plants. Such a utilitarian outlook was also to be found in the tenets of Puritanism: good husbandry was keenly pursued, physical toil being regarded as a form of devotion to God. It should be remembered that Lawson was a Protestant preacher, and as Thick points out, his religious convictions were broadly puritan; as he states, he had no time for ‘popery and knavery’.

The heading preceding the first chapter sums up the aim of Lawson’s New Orchard: ‘the best, sure and readiest way to make a good orchard and garden’. He begins with the traits to be sought in a good gardener should the reader be in the position to employ one: he should be honest, and certainly not ‘an idle, or lazie lubber’. If lucky enough to have the services of such a paragon, ‘God shall crowne the labours of his hands with joyfulnesse, and make the clouds drop fatnesse upon your trees’. For those who have to roll up their own sleeves, however, Lawson has written this book and ‘gathered these rules’ together.

The work goes on to deal comprehensively with all aspects of orchard management, covering: the kind of soil required (‘blacke, fat, mellow, cleane and well tempered’) and how to improve it; the best kind of site and how to protect it with fencing, or even better, ‘quickwood, and moates or ditches of water’; how to deal with ‘annoyances’ such as animals, birds, thieves, disease and the weather (not to mention the evils of a ‘carelesse master’); how to plant, space and prune your trees; the different types of fruit trees and bushes and their qualities; and how to gather, store and preserve the fruits of your labours. As Lawson sums up, ‘skill and pains, bring fruitful gains’.

Lawson’s advice is eminently sensible. His instructions are clear and obviously draw on the considerable personal skills he accrued over his lifetime. However, it is the underlying philosophy of the author and his frequent lyricism and rhetorical eloquence that still makes this book such a pleasure to read today. This is apparent even in the most technical of chapters, where Lawson deals with topics such as raising sets, planting and grafting. A typical example is found in the section on pruning where he emphasises the need for man’s intervention by drawing a comparison with an uncultivated wood full of neglected, rotten, and dying trees, as he rails: ‘What rottennesse? what hollownes? what dead armes? withered tops? curtalled trunks? what loads of mosses? drouping boughes? & dying branches shall you see everywhere?’

But Lawson’s sentiments rarely override his practicality. For instance, he devotes a considerable section to the measures required to counteract the ‘whole Army of mischiefs’ that plague the gardener. He ruefully acknowledges that ‘Good things have most enemies’ and catalogues a whole host of enemies ranging from deer to moles (they will ‘anger you’). He even advises that sparrowhawks are useful against plundering garden birds: although he acknowledges the delight of hearing blackbirds and thrushes singing on a May morning, ‘I had rather want their company than my fruit’.

Despite his problem with flying cherry thieves, the overall impression gained from reading the book is that Lawson’s ideal garden would be a delight. As well as abundant fruit trees, there would be sweet scented flowers, humming bees (whom, he assures us, do not sting their friends), beautiful ornaments, silver sounding music, broad and long walkways, a maze, and even a bowling alley for exercise.

The satisfied gardener should ‘view now with delight the works of your owne hands, your fruit trees of all sorts, loaden with sweet blossomes, and fruit of all tasts, operations and colours: your trees standing in comely order which way soever you look … Your borders on every side hanging and drooping with Feberries, Raspberries, Barberries, Currents, and the roots of your trees powdred with Strawberries, red, white and green, what a pleasure is this?’

Having gathered in the harvest, Lawson recommends a period of reflection: ‘Now pause with your selfe, and view the end of all your labours in an Orchard: unspeakable pleasure, and infinite commodity’. But although the yield will hopefully be profitable, the means is not all about the end: ‘For what is greedy gaine, without delight, but moyling, and turmoyling in slavery? But comfortable delight, with content, is the good of every thing, and the patterne of heaven … And who can deny but the principall end of an orchard, is the honest delight of one wearied with the works of his lawfull calling?’

The book is also loved for its woodcut illustrations. In the preface, Lawson explains that no expense was spared in producing these for the ‘common good’: much ‘cost and care’ was bestowed by the publisher in having them produced by ‘the best Artizan’.

The illustration depicting the ‘overall plan for the form of a garden’ is a simplified view of a typical late Elizabethan garden. The overall rectangular shape is split into six square sections set over three levels or terraces, negotiated via flights of stairs and intercrossing walkways. Its design demonstrates the Tudors love for symmetry and patterns. A mount (‘M’) at each corner overlooks the garden and the countryside beyond it, and a fountain plays at one of the walkway crossings. There are two still houses in the top corners (‘N’). The individual gardens within gardens are variously landscaped with trees, kitchen gardens, flowerbeds, knots, and topiary (signified by the horse and sword wielding man). A river runs at the top and bottom of the garden. The presence of water nearby is lauded as being both practical (in providing moisture for thirsty trees and in acting as a barrier) and pleasant for sport, for ‘you might sit in your mount and angle a peckled trout, sleighty eel or some other daintie fish’. According to Malcolm Thick, this garden would have been considered old-fashioned by the most fashion-conscious gentlemen of the early Seventeenth Century who were more interested in Italian influenced grand ‘Renaissance’ gardens, preferably laid out by a Continental gardeners. But is should be remembered that Lawson was hearkening back to the 1570s when writing his work, and the gardens he favoured ‘had an intimacy never regained once the impact of the high Italian Renaissance and the French grand manner reached England’ (Miles Hadfield, quoted by Thick).

The second work in Lawson’s book, The Country Housewife’s Companion, lacks the philosophical discourses of its companion volume. This is perhaps because it was written specifically for women (‘my country housewife, not skillful artists’), and its simple tone is therefore pitched at a less learned readership. Nonetheless, it frequently refers to the text of The New Orchard and it seems that the two books were intended to be read and used together.

The book is split into a series of short chapters that offer advice on a number of topics, including the soil and layout of the ideal garden, the properties of various herbs and plants, general rules for gardening, and the husbandry of bees.

Lawson suggests that each household should have two gardens: a kitchen garden and a flower garden. He explains that the distinction between the two does not have to be perfect but that ‘your garden flowers shall suffer some disgrace if among them you intermingle onions, parsnips,etc.’ The division is for both practical and aesthetic reasons: that ‘for your kitchen’s use must yield daily roots or other herbs and suffer deformity’ while ‘the herbs of both will not be both alike ready at one time either for gathering or removing’.

The flower (or ‘summer’) garden could be set out in in squares and knots. Lawson recommends using a mix of flowers and herbs, mentioning roses, rosemary, lavendar, hyssop, sage, thyme, cowslips, peonies, daisies, clove-gilliflowers, pinks, and lilies. Several illustrations of patterns for knot gardens are provided, but Lawson concedes that for these ‘speciall formes in squares’ there are as many devices as ‘gardeners braines’ and prefers to ‘leave every house-wife to herself.’

plans for knots (pages 80-82 [ie 81])

This work also provides detailed information about bee-keeping, covering everything from constructing a hive to extracting honey. This again was based on personal experience, Lawson telling us that he was a ‘Bee-master’ for many years. He goes against conventional wisdom in preferring a straw hive for his bees over a wooden one, but says that he recommends them for ‘nimblenesse, closenesse, warmnesse and drynesse.’ He emphasises the tenderness of bees on several occasions, saying, for example, that the ‘nesh Bee can neither abide cold or wet’.

Two short pamphlets are appended to the end of Lawson’s work: A most profitable new treatise, from approved experience of the art of propagating plants by Simon Harward (pages 109-123) and The husbandmans fruitfull orchard (pages 125-134). Harward’s work is an in-depth explanation of the methodology for layering and grafting trees. The last work is a common sense guide to picking, packing, transporting and preserving fruit.

We do not know who originally owned this copy of the book, but the volume does bear intriguing glimpses of its past life. An annotation in an Italic hand at the foot of the main title-page indicates that the book was in Durham and purchased for six shillings at some unspecified point in its history. This inscription is followed by a more obscure annotation – possibly the initials ‘J.G.’, the initials ‘I.G. also being blind stamped on the front board of the binding.

Glasgow University Library acquired the book as part of the collection of John Ferguson, purchased in 1920. Ferguson (1838-1916) was a Professor of Chemistry at Glasgow University from 1874 to 1915. Although his library is justly renowned for its strengths in Alchemy and Chemistry, it also contains many interesting books and manuals on practical topics such as gardening, husbandry and cookery. According to a note in the front pastedown, Ferguson bought this book on 16 February, 1906.

This book will be on display in the Special Collections foyer (on level 12 of Glasgow University Library), along with a small selection of other gardening books, until the end of September 2006.

‘To conclude, what joy may you have, that you living to such an age, shall see the blessings of God on your labours while you live, and leave behind you to heirs or successors (for God will make heires) such a work, that many ages after your death, shall record your love to their Country? And the rather, when you consider to what length of time your worke is like to last’.

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“Of all the English Reformers, Bishop Hugh Latimer was the most popular in his time and probably has the greatest place in the affections of posterity. Although a passionate preacher and a zealot for reform, in a day when religious executions were all too common, he completed his three-score years and ten, before sealing his testimony with his blood”

Edward VI listening to a sermon by Hugh Latimer at St. Paul’s Cross, London on January 29, 1548.

(Harold S. Darby, Hugh Latimer (London: Epworth Press, 1953), p. 7.)

Latimer preaching to Edward VII From John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, artist unknown.

Octavo 137 x 88 mm A-D8, A-Y8, Aa-Ee8 (Lacking Ee7 and 8, undoubtedly blank.) First editions, each of the two works is one of three or four undated variants, attributed to the year 1549. This copy is bound in nineteenth century calfskin, the hinges starting to crack but holding strong.

The Encyclopedia Britannica calls Hugh Latimer’s sermons, “classics of their kind. Vivid, racy, terse in expression; profound in religious feeling, sagacious in their advice on human conduct. To the historical student they are of great value as a mirror of the social and political life of the period.”

“All things which are written, are written for our erudition and knowledge. All things that are written in God’s book, in the Bible book, in the book of the Holy Scripture, are written to be our doctrine.” (from Hugh Latimer’s Sermon of the Plow)

“This was the first of Latimer’s famous Lenten sermons on the duty of restoring stolen goods which resulted in the receipt of considerable sums of ‘conscience money.’” (Phorzimer Catalogue)“The seven sermons which he preached before the king in the following Lent are a curious combination of moral fervor and political partisanship, eloquently denouncing a host of current abuses, and paying the warmest tribute to the government of Somerset.” (DNB)

(C)opyright Church Society; material may be used for non-profit purposes provided that the source is acknowledged and the text is not altered.

HUGH LATIMER – APOSTOLIC PREACHER. By David Streater.:

“With the accession of Edward VI at the beginning of 1547, the danger to Latimer’s life receded and he was released from the Tower of London under a general pardon. He returned to preaching and as Darby says in his book, Hugh Latimer (1953):-

Latimer’s fame is most secure as a preacher. It was in that way that he served best in the days of Henry VIII: it was almost the only way that he served during the short reign of his son. The six years gave him his fullness of opportunity to follow his natural bent.

It was during these years that the First Prayer Book of 1549 and the Second, more Protestant, Prayer Book of 1552 were drawn up with the Forty Two Articles and the First Book of Homilies. With such a programme of reform, it was clear that Latimer would be the natural choice to return to

the See of Worcester. He was invited to do so but he declined the appointment on the ground of age and infirmity. This was accepted, and as preaching was his high calling, he preached extensively before the young king. Most of our knowledge of his sermons dates from this period of his ministry. He became a champion, not only of the spoken word, but of the Word preached directly to the present congregation. It was a word relevant to the condition of the nation as a whole.

His earlier convocation sermon which had attacked the lethargy and worldliness of the clergy had won Latimer the respect of the nation. His refusal of high office and the wealth which went with it gained their hearts. It would be true to say that no other English preacher has ever been held in such high esteem, including the Wesleys and George Whitefield, as well as Charles Spurgeon. It would also be true to say that no other preacher has ever accomplished as much good in the life of the nation. The records of the State Paper Office and British Museum bear out this testimony. But Latimer was now ageing and after Lent 1550, he resigned as the King’s preacher and he returned to his home country, his beloved Midland Counties, continuing to preach from Lincolnshire to Warwickshire.”

Latimer preaching to Edward VII From John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, artist unknown.

Hugh Latimer preaching to King Edward VI of England, a woodcut in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, better known as Foxe’s English Martyrs. By the time this book was published in 1563, Edward VI was revered as a pious patron of the English Reformation, a new Josiah who loved nothing better than to hear sermons, during which he often took notes. He is depicted here listening from a gallery to a sermon by Bishop Hugh Latimer, who, along with Thomas Cranmer and Nicholas Ridley, was a key figure in the development of Protestantism in Edward’s reign and, like them, a martyr under Edward’s Catholic successor Queen Mary I. Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch stresses the accuracy of this image of Edward, though fellow historian Jennifer Loach cautions against too ready an acceptance of the portrayal of Edward by Reformation propagandists such as Foxe, who called Edward a “godly imp”. The pulpit in the Privy Garden at the Palace of Whitehall had been built by Henry VIII in an enclosure which continued to be used for animal-baiting and wrestling. The king’s pulpit became the most fashionable preaching place in London, provoking Latimer to complain: “Surely it is an ill misorder that folk shall be walking up and down in the sermon-time, as I have seen in the place this Lent: and there shall be such huzzing and buzzing in the preacher’s ear that it maketh him oftentimes to forget his matter”. (References: Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, pp. 21–25, 107; Jennifer Loach, Edward VI, New Haven (CT): Yale University Press, 1999, pp. 180–81.) & Chris Skidmore, Edward VI: The Lost King of England, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, ISBN 9780297846499.

Quarto. 8 x5 1⁄2 inches : a-s6 t-v4 x-z6 (lacking one leaf x2 ( folio cxvii) aa-cc6 dd4.. This copy is bound in late 19th century quarter calf & marbled paper boards, rubbed with, light soiling and water stains. Numerous early or contemporary notes. And three full of notes at the end of the text.

This interesting book is an epitome in verse of Raymond of Peñafort’s Summa de poenitentia et matrimonio, with commentary and interlinear glosses. More than simply a list of sins and suggested penances, it discussed pertinent doctrines and laws of the Church that pertained to the problem or case brought to the confessor, and is widely considered an authoritative work on the subject.[1]

This versification is ascribed to Adamus, a 13th cent. Cistercian monk of Aldersbach in Lower Bavaria; sometimes attributed to Adam Coloniensis. Cf. F. Valls Taberner, “La ‘Summula Pauperum’ de Adam de Alderspach,” Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens, Bd. 7 (1938), p. 69-83 In this edition Adam’s Summula de summa Raymundi itself receives a detailed prose commentary. This edition contains Raymond’s Summa with his commentary on the trees of consanguinity and affinity, which indicated whether couples were not permitted to marry because of blood kinship or sexual contact.” Thomas Izbicki [3]

Saint Raymond of Peñafort is the Patron Saint of: Lawyers

In 1229 Raymond was appointed theologian and penitentiary to the Cardinal Archbishop of Sabina, John of Abbeville, and was summoned to Rome in 1230 by Pope Gregory IX, who appointed him chaplain and grand penitentiary.[2]

“Raymond of Peñafort’s Summa de casibus conscientiae, including its fourth book, the Summa de matrimonio, was one of the most successful texts for pastors and confessors composed in the Middle Ages.. The Summa was subject to detailed commentary by William of Rennes, updates by John of Freiburg reflecting new papal pronouncements, and abridgment for pastors’ greater convenience. “(Ghezzi, Bert. “Saint Raymond of Penyafort”, Voices of the Saints, Loyola Press)

San Raimundo de Peñafort; compiled the Decretals of Gregory IX, which remained a major part of Church law until 1917. As a novice Raimundo was assigned to develop a book of case studies for confessors. The Summa de casibus poenitentiae is a guide book for Confessors made up as a case book and papal decrees and decretals concerning eucharist, celibacy, abortions, helping the poor, women with leprosy, curses, etc.{3}

He studied canon law at Bologna and taught there from 1218 to 1221. Among his works of this period were unpublished annotations of the Decretum of Gratian (flourished c. 1140; the father of the scienceof canon law) and an uncompleted treatise on canon law, Summa juris canonici.

In 1230 Pope Gregory IX called Raymond to Rome to serve as a papal chaplain to examine cases of conscience. Gregory also commissioned him to codify the papal statutes and rulings on points of canon law that had been issued since the appearance of Gratian’s Decretum. Raymond’s compilationof Gregory’s Decretals was formally promulgated in 1234. The following year he revised and reissued his Summa de casibus, with an added part on the law of matrimony.

He returned to Spain (1236) and in 1238 was elected master general of the Dominican Order. Although he resigned after only two years, he revised the constitutions of the order. The remainder of his life was devoted to various papal commissions and to missionary interests. Later he organized schools of Arabic and Hebrew studies for missionaries in Tunis and in Murcia (c. 1255), an independent Muslim kingdom in Spain. It was at his request that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa contra gentiles, a theological exposition against the heathens.

Mercedarian, also called Nolascan, member of Order of Our Lady of Mercy, also called Knights of Saint Eulalia, religious order founded by St. Peter Nolasco in Spain in 1218, for the purpose of ransoming Christian captives from the Moors. It was originally a military order. St. Raymond of Penafort, Nolasco’s confessor and the author of the order’s rule, based the rule on that of St. Augustine. In addition to the usual three religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Mercedarians took a fourth vow, to offer themselves as hostages for Christian prisoners in danger of losing their faith.

The habit of a Mercedarian is white, originally to facilitate entrance into Muslim territory, and he wears a wide leather belt with a chain, suggesting the sword that all members once customarily carried.

Pope Gregory IX approved the order in 1235, and it spread rapidly through Europe. During the founder’s lifetime, the order freed 2,700 prisoners and, overall, claimed to have freed about 70,000 prisoners. In 1265 a second order of Mercedarians for women was founded in Spain by St. Mary de Cervello. In 1318 Pope John XXII decreed that the leader of the order should be a priest, an action that caused lay knights to leave the Mercedarians and join a military order of Our Lady of Montesa. The Mercedarians subsequently became a mendicant order. Mercedarians accompanied Columbus to America and founded monasteries in Latin America. They also established themselves in Africa, Italy, France, and Ireland. In 1602 a reform movement led by Juan Bautista Gonzalez resulted in the Discalced Mercedarians, whose rule was approved in 1606 by Pope Paul V. The anticlerical mood of the 19th century came close to extinguishing the Mercedarians. In 1880, however, Pedro Armengol Valenzuela became master general, revised their constitution, and guided the order to educational, charitable, and social work, activities which the Mercedarians continued to pursue in the 20th century.

The Miracle:

Raymond of Penyafort served as the confessor for King James I of Aragon, who was a loyal son of the Church but allowed his lustful desires to shackle him. While on the island of Majorca to initiate a campaign to help convert the Moors living there, the king brought his mistress with him. Raymond reproved the king and asked him repeatedly to dismiss his concubine. This the king refused to do. Finally, the saint told the king that he could remain with him no longer and made plans to leave for Barcelona. But the king forbade Raymond to leave the island, and threatened punishment to any ship captain who dared to take him. Saint Raymond then said to his Dominican companion, “Soon you will see how the King of heaven will confound the wicked deeds of this early king and provide me with a ship!” They then went down to the seashore where Raymond took off his cappa (the long black cloak the Dominicans wear over the white tunic and scapular), and spread one end of it on the water while rigging the other end to his walking staff. Having thus formed a miniature mast, Raymond bid the other Dominican to hop on, but his companion, lacking the saint’s faith, refused to do so. Then Raymond bid him farewell, and with the sign of the cross he pushed away from the shore and miraculously sailed away on his cloak. Skirting around the very boats that had forbidden him passage, the saint was seen by scores of sailors who shouted in astonishment and urged him on. Raymond sailed the ~160 miles to Barcelona in the space of six hours, where his landing was witnessed by a crowd of amazed spectators. Touched by this miracle, King James I renounced his evil ways and thereafter led a good life.[4]

St. Raymond of Peñafort’s feast day was inserted in the General Roman Calendar in 1671 for celebration on 23 January. In 1969 it was moved to 7 January, the day after that of his death.[10] He is the patron saint of canon lawyers, specifically, and lawyers, in general, in addition to being the unofficial patron saint of making a superb exit, due to the nature of his most famous miracle.

Copies in the U.S.: 1)Harvard 2)Library of Congress, 3)Univ. of California 4)Yale Univ.

Provenance:old ms. inscription ‘Societatis Jesu Brugensis’ on title page ; Bibliotheca Broxbourniana (1949) ; heraldic ex libris with the letters A and E of Albert Ehrman (motto: pro viribus summis contendo) John Ehrman (1920 – 2011) received the library that his father Albert had started; he used a bookplate with the script “Bibliotheca Broxbourniana” In addition to his historical scholarship, he worked to enhance his father’s library, and disposed of it by gift and auction sale in the late 1970s, ending with a final sale in 1978.

FIRST EDITION of the major work by William of Auxerre. In his commentary on Peter Lombard, William treats creation, natural law, the nature of man, a tripartite God, usury, end the Last Judgment, among other topics. He applies the critical reasoning of classical philosophy to his writing, He was an Archdeacon of Beauvais before becoming a professor of theology at the university in Paris. In 1231, he was made a member of the commission (the others were Simon of Authie and Stephen of Provins, both canons of Rheims) appointed by Gregory IX to examine Aristotle’s writings on the natural sciences and to offer amendments where religiously necessary. And “correct” the corpus of Aristotle and his Arab commentators (which had been banned at the university of Paris since 1210) and extirpate dangerous passages. Contrary to the papal legate Robert of Courçon and other conservatives, who in 1210 condemned Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics as corruptive of Christian faith, William saw no intrinsic reason to avoid the rational analysis of Christian revelation. Confident of William’s orthodoxy, Gregory urged the King to restore him to the university faculty so that he and Godfrey of Poitiers might reorganize the plan of studies. William fell ill and died before any of these projects were begun.The work of the committee was never completed.

The Summa Aurea, written between 1215 and 1220, the Summa Aurea, is divided into four books as a commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, that was an important precursor to Aquinas. It contains an ample disquisition on usury and the natural law basis of economic matters. William was one of the first theologians to be influenced by Aristotle. Preceding as he did the Aristotelian revival, William was largely influenced by St. Augustine, St. Anselm of Canterbury, Richard and Hugh of Saint–Victor, and Avicenna. He is considered the first medieval theologian to develop a systematic treatise on free will, the virtues, and the natural law. His Summa Aurea shows an intellectual awareness and insistence on the physical which had not been seen in earlier philosophers. Both in method and in content it shows a considerable amount of originality, although, like all the Summæ of the early thirteenth century, it is influenced by the manner and method of the Lombard. William was probably a student of the Parisian canon and humanist Richard of St. Victor but the teacher whom William was most profoundly influenced was Praepositinus, or Prevostin, of Cremona, Chancellor of the University of Paris from 1206 to 1209. William was, in turn, the teacher of the Dominican, John of Treviso, one of the first theologians of the Order of Preachers. The importance of the “Summa Aurea” is enhanced by the fact that it was one of the first Summæ composed after the introduction of the metaphysical and physical treatises of Aristotle.

The Summa aurea, in four books, selectively treated such theological matters as God as one nature in three persons, creation, man, Christ and the virtues, sacramental worship, and the Last Judgment.

William’s emphasis on philosophy as a tool for Christian theology is evidenced by his critique of Plato’s doctrine of a demiurge, or cosmic intelligence, and by his treatment of the theory of knowledge as a means for distinguishing between God and creation. He also analyzed certain moral questions, including the problem of human choice and the nature of virtue.

William also wrote a Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis (“Compendium of Church Services”), which treated liturgical, or common, prayer, sacramental worship, and the annual cycle of scripture readings and chants. This systematic study served as the model for the late-13th-century noted work on divine worship, Guillaume Durand’s Rationale divinorum officiorum (“An Explanation of the Divine Offices”).